


To Crush the Flower Within the Soul

by reine_des_corbeaux



Series: My Tongue Could Utter [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sex Work, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Coercion, Elias Bouchard Is A Creep, Forced Feminization, Forced Prostitution, M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:47:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: Elias teaches Martin how to conduct himself, and informs him of his purpose.Written for MartinElias Week Day 1:History/Inheritance/Class
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Elias Bouchard
Series: My Tongue Could Utter [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050707
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31
Collections: MartinElias Week 2020





	To Crush the Flower Within the Soul

Martin tries. He tries so hard to float, delicately skimming the floor in an enchanting swirl, but in the end, his feet and his clothing betray him. One stubborn, pinching shoe catches on his hem, and he tumbles to the floor in a tangle of blue silk and tangled limbs. Only his hands, equally clumsy, catch him before his face collides with polished parquet. He lies there for a moment, breathing heavily, the golden grain of the wood swimming blurrily before his eyes (Elias took his spectacles when he arrived, and he has only a lorgnette now, ladylike and delicate, only allowed to be used in his rare moments of solitude). 

Given the choice, Martin would gladly remain lying on the parquet, stewing in his own humiliation but ignoring this world of polished furniture and shining mirrors all around him. He lets his eyes drift shut for a moment, only to be interrupted by a soft coughing behind him and the impatient scuffing of a shoe against the floor. 

“Martin,” Elias says, “stop these hysterics and stand up at once.” 

Martin pushes himself awkwardly upright. His corset pinches at him, though Elias promised this morning, as he does all mornings, that it isn’t even laced very tightly at all. That will come later, and that _later_ always makes Martin shiver in the morning’s cold light and cold, staring at himself in a mirror and finding his reflection already unfamiliar. But there are no mirrors to stare at before him, only Elias’s merciless, displeased eyes. He looks at Martin, sitting disheveled and uncomfortable in his blue silk tea gown, disdain apparent in every line of his face. 

It would be easier if Elias was furious with him, rather than disappointed and disapproving. But the pity in his eyes is always too much for Martin to bear. He wants to be better, or at least be able to attract strong emotion. But even in this new life, where he is no longer Martin Blackwood, clerk and failure of a son to his aged mother, but instead some new and chimerical creature belonging half to the world of fashion and half to a sordid demimonde, he is still a disappointment. Nothing more and nothing less. 

“I’m sorry,” Martin says, and resists an urge to throw something, perhaps a shoe, in Elias’s direction. 

“Show me by standing up.” Elias adjusts his sleeves, cocking his head expectantly, and Martin does, slowly and without art, his ankle twinging painfully in his button boots. 

On his feet at last, Martin blinks, and smooths his skirts with gloved and trembling hands. He doesn’t understand why he must do this, why Elias promised him money and freedom from drudgery, only to bring him to a beautiful villa and set him up as though he is a rich man’s mistress and not a young man in search of a new life. Well, a new life he’s got, even if it’s one lived behind closed curtains and in silk and lace. 

“There now,” Elias says, smiling. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He stands briskly, with an ease that Martin envies, and claps his hands, firmly, as though to signal the start of something. “Take another turn about the room. Let’s see if you learned anything from the last time.” 

Careful with his aching ankle, Martin shuffles into what must be his twentieth circle of the room this afternoon. This time, though, Elias follows him, the click of his shoes against the parquet echoing the soft swish of Martin’s skirts. Martin tries to imagine himself light and floating, but his heavy body holds him down. When he stumbles the first time, Elias breathes out in a sharp and frustrated huff. When Martin stumbles a second time, a long-fingered hand reaches out to wrap around his wrist, sharp-nailed and tight enough to bruise. 

Elias steers Martin, despite everything, towards the wall. Martin stumbles and twists, his ankles screaming with the effort of staying upright and avoiding his hem, but Elias pays his struggles no heed as he backs Martin into the wall, pressing him into a corner, hands pinning Martin’s arms in place. 

“Do you know why you do this?” 

“What, stumble? I’d say it’s the shoes.” 

It’s a greater show of defiance than Martin’s made in ages, and Elias’s hands leave his shoulders only to solidly find a place against the wall, caging Martin in and making him squirm with the desire to break away, to run and leave his gilded cage behind. 

“No, Martin, we both know that I don’t mean the shoes,” Elias says, smiling with a thin sort of malice apparent in every plane of his face. “I mean your stubborn recalcitrance and your petulant inability to follow my demands. I don’t ask much of you, do I? Only that you be inviting and unresisting.” 

His breath is hot against Martin’s cheek, and Martin winces. Focusing on his breathing, Martin looks beyond Elias, towards the fireplace on the other side of the room, towards the ghostly forms of sheet-draped furniture. The room’s waiting for something, but what that something is, Martin doesn’t know. And furniture, unliving and blinded by dust-covers, can bear no witness to Elias’s torments and Martin’s travails. 

“Yes, and that I wear all this and walk around in shoes that _hurt._ You took my spectacles! What does that have to do with making me inviting and unresisting?” 

Martin tries not to think of his lavishly appointed bed, and the ways Elias’s hands linger on Martin’s waist as he helps Martin dress in the morning. Martin knows what happens to poor girls and telegram boys seduced by the words of rich men. He’s neither a poor girl nor a telegram boy, but he can’t help but imagine that Elias wants something similar from him, and the bile of fear rises in his gorge. 

“Really, Martin. It doesn’t suit you to be so stubborn, when we both know what you need and desire.” 

“It’s not this. It’s not being dressed like this and it’s not looking like this, and it’s not living like this.” 

Martin’s own voice shocks him, too loud and too high, cracking into a lugubrious wobble on the last word. If they weren’t pinned against the wall by the frame of Elias’s arms, Martin would bring his hands to his mouth to block the sounds that have already escaped, the words gone flying into the aether where he cannot take them back. Elias looks at him for a moment, green eyes glaring, but otherwise perfectly relaxed. 

Before Martin can process it, a burning pain flashes across his face, and Elias lowers his hand. He’s smiling, as though he hasn’t just backhanded Martin across the cheek. 

“Martin, I tell you what you can be. I tell you who you may be, and what you may do. You would do well to learn that.” 

Martin cups his face in both hands, but keeps down his sob. He should be used to this now. How many months has it been? Too many, and that is all he knows. Months of growing soft and listless and diminishing bodily through lack of sunlight and insufficient meals (and Martin knows these are not because Elias cannot provide, but because he wishes to show Martin exactly who is in control). He could leave, but where would he go? What does he have but a wardrobe of silk dresses and shoes that hurt his feet? Better to stay in a world where the only unpredictability is Elias’s cruelty. He drops his hands from his burning face, and does not look Elias in the eye. 

“I want to know why,” he says at last. “Why must I do this?” 

“Because,” Elias replies, “I have many friends, like-minded gentlemen who would enjoy your company as I do. If you keep them company, as you keep me company, then you will more than earn your keep.” 

“You want me to be a whore.” 

“Think, rather, a _demimondaine._ You’re too good for the streets, Martin.” Elias reaches up to caress Martin’s face, his hand cool against the still-sore mark it left only moments before. “I have full confidence that you’ll do well.” 

“I don’t. And I don’t want to do this.” 

“Really? What else is there for you to do with yourself? You could be happy, you know, if you only gave in.” Elias leans close to Martin’s ear. His breath is hot where his hands were cool. “We both know what you want, Martin. You want to be degraded, and you want to be worshipped for it. And I can give you that. My friends can give you that. You can even pay for your keep, rather than existing on my charity.” 

Martin shivers against the chill of that knowledge, against Elias’s cutting, burrowing words. He’s right, or at least right enough to make Martin question everything about himself, but isn’t that how it always is? Isn’t it better, when Elias is concerned, to give into the fear and to obey? 

“Fine,” Martin says. His voice is thick in his mouth and his words are alien on his own tongue. “I’ll do it.” 

“Good.” Elias smiles, thin-lipped, and reaches down to cup Martin’s chin and tilt up his face. 

Elias’s kiss probes as deeply as do his words. It’s as though he’s everywhere: inside Martin’s mouth and head and body and soul all at once, his hands wandering. _I should kick him_ , Martin thinks, but when he tries to lift his knee, a strange lassitude envelops his body, and he can do nothing but sink into the kiss, leaning against the wall and letting Elias take him, as though he wants to wring Martin’s body and catch or discard any bit of soul or autonomy that comes dribbling out of him. Martin can do no more than think of fighting, and even that becomes harder and harder. He closes his eyes just as Elias breaks the kiss. 

“There now,” Elias says. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it? Though you’ll have to be more accomodating once you have gentleman callers. They won’t be terribly happy if all you do is your best imitation of a well-dressed dead fish.” 

Martin can only nod. His voice is lodged in his throat. Perhaps it’s gone entirely. His legs tremble, and he longs suddenly to sit down. But Elias does not let him free. Instead, he runs a hand along Martin’s waist, gentle yet firm. Even through the whalebone corset, Martin feels its pressure. He hums as he does so, a pensive, echoing sound. 

“I think we’ll take this tighter tomorrow,” Elias says at last, patting Martin’s side. “And we really should see about engaging you a valet.” 

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is more or less the origin story for the courtesan!Martin AU! Obviously, Jon's not yet in the picture here, as chronologically, it falls before the earlier fics, but Martin continues to suffer all the same. 
> 
> Title from Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Jenny."


End file.
